{"id":40642,"date":"2024-08-09T16:47:27","date_gmt":"2024-08-09T15:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=40642"},"modified":"2024-08-09T16:47:27","modified_gmt":"2024-08-09T15:47:27","slug":"reminder-ihbcs-context-180s-bumper-issue-part-1-explore-where-heritage-and-nature-meet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=40642","title":{"rendered":"REMINDER: IHBC\u2019s Context 180\u2019s BUMPER issue, Part 1: Explore \u2018Where heritage and nature meet\u2019\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The new issue of the IHBC\u2019s members\u2019 journal, Context<\/em><\/a>, No. 180, moves beyond Churchill\u2019s take on \u2018architecture shaping us\u2019 to argue that \u2018we have [now] come to realise that what we build has a fundamental effect on the planet and its climate, and vice versa\u2019.<\/h3>\n

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\u2026 Dominating nature, through landscapes and buildings, became a habit\u2026<\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n

The IHBC writes:<\/p>\n

We are all doomed, but…<\/p>\n

Buildings and nature met in the first cave that people adapted as shelter, and in the first hut that they made from whatever materials were growing around them. The local vernacular developed from what the natural world provided close at hand: timber in sufficient spans to make a roof; stone, mud or brick clay to make roofs and walls. Later, there were leisure and resources to make formal gardens and landscapes that demonstrated how nature could be tamed. \u2018There\u2019s nothing wild and uncultivated about us,\u2019 was the message. Later, gardens and landscapes that looked less formal showed how the natural world could be shaped to a refined sense of beauty. Dominating nature, through landscapes and buildings, became a habit. In time, some people came to value what had been built and became less sure that it could be replaced by something better.<\/p>\n

Focusing on taming nature perhaps blinded us to the effects that development can have on the natural environment even when we do not notice it. Only recently has promoting biodiversity become an aim of the planning system. More than that, we have come to realise that what we build has a fundamental effect on the planet and its climate, and vice versa. The changing weather has always been the favourite topic of conversation. We can cope with weather. A changing climate is something else: just as unpredictable as the weather, but with potentially catastrophic consequences. That means, as far as historic buildings are concerned, that conservation is becoming more difficult. As ever, we have to decide what we value most, and where we are willing to invest our scarce resources. We are finding that the changing climate\u2019s heat, cold, wind, rain, sea levels and other extremes are making some of those decisions unusually painful.<\/p>\n

\u2018We are all doomed,\u2019 Imogen Wood writes in her article in this issue (page 12), \u2018but in the short term, some places and assets are more doomed than others.\u2019 Responding creatively to that predicament will involve, she rightly suggests, asking some difficult questions about how we balance what we value in heritage and nature.<\/p>\n

Context<\/em>\u2019s themed articles include:<\/p>\n